Golden Secondary School’s Grade 10 class put together a very special media display at the Golden Youth Centre to showcase some of the important lessons they have learned this year.
Golden’s Community Coordination for Safety in Relationships (CCSR) team, which consists of a number of local professionals from different fields, approached the high school to see if they could be involved in educating youth on topics such as healthy relationships, sexual assault and consent.
This was after a 2012 Gender Based Analysis in Golde,n conducted by the same committee (in which 213 local youth participated), revealed that prevention programs for youth were needed in the community, particularly relationship training.
The CCSR decided to bring in the Safe Teen Program from the lower mainland, which teaches youth the skills they need to handle potentially violent situations, how to be assertive, as well as self defence for girls, and the prevalence of the boy code that exists in our society.
In addition to these classes, with funding from Columbia Basin Trust’s Community Initiatives and Affected Areas Program, the CCSR team was able to bring Safe Teen to Golden to speak with the Grade 10 students as well as parents.
The showcase included a variety of mediums to discuss the themes of safety in relationships and gender based violence, including poetry, songs, videos, multiple posters and three dimensional displays.
“Some of the work they have created is very powerful, we’re really proud of what they have done,” said Kristy Archer, the CCSR project co-ordinator at the Youth Centre showcase.
“We asked them to create awareness-raising tools around the subjects covered in class, that we could then bring to the greater community, which is what we’re doing tonight.”
Only one student was brave enough to perform her work live at the event, much of it was shown through video. Naomi Lenstra performed the poem she wrote during the Planning 10 class.
